BOC Ghat on the bank of the Meghna at Ashuganj in Brahmanbaria is one of Bangladesh's largest paddy markets. In the rice-mill yards (chatals) that have grown up around it, drying starts at dawn. Prothom Alo photographer Shahadat Hossain's photo story follows a day in one of those yards.
Men and women spread the paddy across the yard, walking up and down to level it. The pictures show that most of the workers are women, and that age has not stopped some of them from working.
The work goes on for hours in harsh sun. But when clouds suddenly gather, the scene changes: fearing rain, the workers rush to gather the paddy. Women pull ropes tied to both ends of a wooden plank and push with sticks to bring the grain together, heap it in rows, then cover the heaps with large baskets.
For these yard workers, sunshine is their income. Their household budgets rise and fall with the sun and the rain, and the market's paddy passes through their hands on its way to the rice mills.
Photographs by Prothom Alo photographer Shahadat Hossain.
Photo: Shahnoor Habib Munmun / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0); the picture above is illustrative
Source: Prothom Alo
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